I like to write about movies of all sorts: old and new, good and bad, mainstream and obscure, local and foreign.
Warning: some articles in this blog may be offensive to fans of James Bond, Jean-Luc Godard, and Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris.

Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Why Come No Female Ghostbusters?

I've had a bit of a break from my usual university work this week, and on Monday I managed to get a lot more done in the morning than I initially expected, leaving room for a movie. I wanted to find something fun so I decided to look at something everybody else seemed to talk about but I hadn't seen since I was in Grade 3: Ghostbusters. It's a hugely popular film with some witty humor and a few amusing ideas that sort of blur the line between science fiction and supernatural. I might have even been able to enjoy it if not for one slight little issue, and frankly I can't even tell if I should have a problem with it or if my feminist side is getting overly paranoid (it happens sometimes).

Much as I tried to enjoy the film, one thought kept going through my mind: why are there no female ghostbusters? Why was it necessary for this film to be so predominantly male? I'm not sure if I should be bothered by this situation or not, but throughout the movie I couldn't help but be frustrated by the fact that nearly all the major characters of note were men, with the only women essentially being relegated to "feminine" roles, namely the damsel in distress and the secretary. The fact that Bill Murray's character Peter Venkman seemed to be bit of a pervert who couldn't stand ten feet from a woman without thinking about sex didn't help much.

The ironic thing is that the distressed damsel character, Dana Barrett, was played by none other than Sigourney friggin' Weaver. You know, the actress who made her name playing what is often considered to be one of the strongest female characters ever put on film? How come she doesn't get to bust any ghosts? All she gets to do is hang out in an apartment she knows is haunted when she should be getting the heck out of there and then because she foolishly decides not to move out ends up being possessed by extra-dimensional beings. The secretary meanwhile never really got a whole lot of depth either (she mentions being a psychic at one point, but that ability never got put to any good use) and seemed to be there only to make snarky comments in a rather irritating voice.

It could have been a cool development if they had Dana maybe learn to stand up against the ghosts in her apartment. She wouldn't need to don a proton pack right away but she could have grown to understand it and perhaps become one of the team by the end. But no, that would have made her an interesting character. Far better to reinforce outdated ideals of masculinity and have her needing to be rescued by an all-male team. Alternatively it could have been interesting if they'd given the secretary something to do, maybe having her becoming a ghostbuster in her own right before hand instead of keeping her at the desk.

For that matter, could it have worked if they'd just written one of the ghostbusters as a woman? Even if they wanted to keep the first three guys (Venkman, Spengler, and Stantz) as men, they might have still been able to make it work. There was a plot point about them recruiting new ghostbusters (and by "recruiting" I mean just taking the first person that walks in), which is how Ernie Hudson's character, Winston Zeddmore, enters the picture adding some racial diversity. Perhaps instead of just him they could have had two recruits, have Winston show up and perhaps a woman who expresses interested in busting ghosts and then they'd have five people in the climax instead of four. But who needs that? Racial diversity is great but apparently gender diversity is not according to these filmmakers.

Fortunately, the good news is that there is word going around about a reboot of ghostbusters that will feature an all-female cast. This should allow some balance at least and I guess seems fair. Since the writers of the original couldn't bother to let any women bust some ghosts why should this reboot allow men to do it? So far not much has been said but there are apparently a ton of actresses who want in on it and not without good reason. I just hope if it does end up happening they actually make the female ghostbusters strong and don't oversexualize them (I'd prefer it if they didn't modify the uniforms to accommodate exposed breasts, miniskirts, and high heels). If they can pull it off, I'll certainly be first in line to see this one. Still, that question remains: why are there no female ghostbusters and why did it take a full reboot for it to happen?

7 comments:

Well I think you're being a little hard on the film for not having any female ghostbusters. I think it goes back to how the film was conceived and built up. You had three powerhouse comedians involved from the beginning. If memory serves, Ackroyd and Ramis were heavily involved with script creation and the original concept. Ackroyd in particular is a Lovecraft fan, and injected the whole cult bringing a god from another dimension onto Earth into the story. I think Murray came in as the major blockbuster draw, and of course he ad-libbed a lot of his dialogue. So right there the three main roles are pretty much cast by the involvement of the comedians.

You are correct that Winston could have been a black woman, and the story could have worked great. In fact, I don't think you need to change any of Winston's dialogue and the role would have still been fine. We are talking 1984 here, so women were getting better rounded roles, but things didn't really start to change in that department until the whole "girl power" revolution in the 90s. I mean the early 80s still had films like "9 to 5" and "Tootsie" that dealt with unfair treatment of women in the workplace. So we weren't out of the male-power shadow of the 70s.

So I get where you're coming from, but you have to put the film in some context. It gives you an idea why the concept of a female ghostbuster may never have crossed the film makers minds.

As for the new film.. well again it seems like a gimmick to me. I don't care so much about casting as I do about the writing. One of the reasons Ghostbusters was such a hit for folk my age was the one-liners and memorable dialogue. I still quote from that film! I want the new film to have that kind of cracking wit and psudo-science babble in it. I don't mind having three of the four being women. But to make them all women, just to make it "different" smacks of a marketing ploy. And one that leads directly into the women wearing skirts and low cut tops while busting ghosts.

Okay, that makes a bit more sense. I didn't realize that the lead actors were actually involved in writing the film. Even so, there probably are still ways it could have worked. You mentioned re-writing Winston but even just writing it so that perhaps there's two recruits that join the Ghostbusters instead of just one (so that way you could still keep Winston and have a woman join as well) or my idea of having Dana or Janine develop into tougher characters who essentially become Ghostbusters by the end.

I guess I can see why it would come off as a gimmick but who knows really? They managed to get the screenwriter of The Heat, which was another film that did a similar treatment to the buddy cop film without too much trouble, and definitely no oversexualization. That seems like it could a promising sign, and they director is promising to get a bunch of "hilarious women" so I hope it works.

Still, I guess it's possible things could go wrong. It seems a large portion of female cosplayers who don Ghostbusters uniforms tend to do it with their breasts exposed, short skirts, and other less than pleasant things. I would hope if anything it looks more like that picture at the end of the article.

Have to agree with Roman. He hit the nail on the head. The only thing I'd really add is that aside from being a big name, they kept asking Murray to do it because he was also a buddy of Akroyd's from SNL.

As for a re-boot, spoof, re-imagining, or whatever (all cash grabs if you ask me), I fully expect to see Melissa McCarthy and Tina Fey if for no other reason than name recognition alone. It could definitely work. Still, there are tons of movies I'd gripe about being sexist before Ghostbusters

Oh...I feel old as I was 20 when it came out and it never bothered me at all that it was 4 guys. I am a girl! (at least last time I checked). It was like a buddy movie and Harold Ramis did a great job and so did Ackroyd. Bill Murray didn't want to do the movie but he said OK since they kept asking him. He wanted to make The Razor's Edge which he did. Sigourney was really wanting to do a fun comedy where she played the damsel because she had done so many bad ass films she needed a break. I recall her talking about it. I think one has to just sit back and enjoy the film and not take the women thing too much to heart. If they make another Ghostbusters movie, I would love to see Melissa McCarthy in it and maybe Joanna Lumley and her sidekick from that British sitcom:)

The rumors I've read/heard about regarding the all-female Ghostbusters movie, it sounds like it's going to be more of a spoof than a reboot. A spoof isn't good news, it's just the film studios capitalizing on the popularity of a well-made movie, nothing good can come with that.